Monday, December 21, 2009

...and I am outside raking leaves, wearing a t-shirt and sunglasses. And I'm warm! In fact, I went outside just to get warm! It is warmer outside than inside my house today. On the winter solstice! Something is wrong with the fact that I am raking leaves instead of shoveling snow. This is just not right. It's crazy. But I'm not sayin' it's global warming... so don't you put those words in my mouth (or on my blog.)

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

This advent season has been a very rich one for me. I've learned a lot from my husband's teaching in the small group we attend, the advent program he was in charge of a couple weeks ago, and during his sermons on sunday morning. He has been filling in for our senior pastor the last two weeks and once more this coming sunday. We also have been singing some great advent songs. Two of my favorites are: Who Is This, So Weak and Helpless? and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. (I provided the links there to the Indelible Grace website for you so you can read the lyrics.)

I have been also reading the daily advent devotional provided by Park Cities PCA in Dallas. You can find it here.

Finally, another really great advent resource is a book also titled, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. Here is the link to it. The book is a collection of 22 readings for advent, and includes writings from Martin Luther, John Piper, Tim Keller, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, Francis Schaeffer, and many more! And, the book is dedicated to two of my favorite people in the world, Dr. Wilson & Pam Benton, so that makes it extra special.

Monday, December 07, 2009

the biggest highlight of my parent's visit, other than thanksgiving and black friday, was attending the ou vs osu football game on november 28th, otherwise known simply as bedlam. yes, that is a link to the official wikipedia entry for bedlam. this is serious stuff. I even baked cookies for it.

the bad part about its seriousness is that tickets were not easy to come by. so far this year, bobby and I have been able to acquire tickets just prior to kickoff outside the stadium for a fraction of their face value. our first game was free (thanks josh! who doesn't read this blog...), second game we got two club level seats for $50, and the third game we got two tickets for $20. we knew this game was a big deal, but c'mon, the sooners have had a rough year, we lost our heisman winner (poor sammy!) and most of our starting line-up, the students were on break, AND osu has had a better than usual year. I'm thinking, no one's gonna go. HA!

we got there over two hours early because we wanted to beat the rush and get a good parking space, and my parents wanted to see all the tail-gaters and all the hoopla. so we did all that and then started asking around for tickets. well... fortunately there were not a shortage of sellers. the problem was that no one was willing to negotiate. everyone wanted face value for their tickets. and you KNOW my mom & I never pay full price for ANYTHING! so we waited, and asked, and waited, and asked again, walked around a lot, waited some more, asked even more. and finally, pre-game began and thought SURELY they would drop their prices now! nope. so we waited for kickoff. and STILL no luck. we just about gave up. (fortunately the weather was beautiful so we didn't mind standing outside for hours.) we started to watch the game outside the stadium on the jumbo-tron named sooner vision, of course. then we decided to make one more passing attempt. we saw a guy who actually congratulated us for sticking with it so long and not giving in to the sleezy ticket brokers. ugh, they gave me the creeps. and we finally found one guy who gave us four tickets for $150. much more than I wanted to pay, but yes, we were desperate.

the worst part of our deal was that the four tickets were not together. we had to split up into pairs. bobby and I were on the east side and my parents on the west side. but with the help of our zoom lens on our camera, we could see them.

they are standing at the top of the stairs, just above the handrail.

my parents took this picture trying to get us, but they missed us by a few sections. we were to the left of this photo. in the top section.

we thought we were being generous by giving them the good seats, but it turns out we were the ones that lucked out because we were in the sun and they were in the chilly shade. we all had wind-burned faces by the end though. it was so windy up way up there in our super high seats, I really was scared of blowing off the edge, even though we were in the middle of the section.

in fact, we were so high that I could see our neighborhood!

if you look on the horizon, in the dead center, that's where we live.

only in oklahoma...

oh, and did I mention it was windy?

this happened in about 6 or 7 pictures we took. ugh, I hate wind.

since we were at a football game, I should show at least one picture of the field and the players.

there were a lot of orange-clad folks there.

and they cheered their little cowboy hearts out.

but the sooners prevailed and won bedlam once again! in fact, they won it for the 80th time, thank you very much. and they did it convincingly with a score of 27-0.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

we had another wonderful visit with my parents last week. people at church are surprised that my parents have traveled all the way out here to see us, not once, but twice, since we moved. but those who have known my parents for longer, are probably thinking, they've only been there twice in three months?!?! haha

we are very blessed every time they come because not only are they helpful and generous, they are fun!

they arrived thanksgiving morning and I picked them up at the airport alone because bobby was putting the finishing touches on his turkey and watching my sweet potato casserole bake in the oven. this year bobby cooked one of our turkeys in our ronco showtime rotisserie oven.

it was yummy!

we ate dinner at bobby's parents' house. his mom wanted him to carve the turkey before arriving for convenience, but we just couldn't forgo the norman rockwell carving-the-turkey-right-before-eating-it tradition.

it was really great to be with both sets of parents at the same time. and everyone got along! haha. I joke about that, but we know we are really fortunate to have these good relationships with our parents, and we do not take it for granted.

back to the food:

I think it's funny that we were asked to bring a turkey and potatoes, and we brought turkey, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and cookies.

after dinner we scoured the black friday ads. here are two very serious shoppers. my mom & bobby's cousin, ashley.

the cats also got a little bit of turkey & stuffing

you didn't think we would leave them out, did you?

it was good that we ate early on thursday because we had the rest of the day to recover and rest up for friday morning, which came very early for me... I only get up at 5 am on black friday! we live very close to lots of shopping places, so the decision of where to go was very difficult. we decided to split up, so my & mom and started at kohl's and the men went to home depot & lowe's. I can't tell you all we got because most, ok SOME, of it are christmas presents. we got some really good bargains at kohl's. waiting in line for over an hour was totally worth it!

bobby and my dad could not believe we waited in that line. but they got some things too so they didn't really complain. my dad was a big help saving our spot in line while the rest of us went out into the store finding more stuff!

next stop was academy, then target. bobby really wanted to go to walmart to see the fuss there, but when he got there, he said it wasn't that great. maybe because all the excitement was between 3 and 5 am, and he didn't get there until after 9.

later that day we all went to the OU campus to walk around and take a christmas card photo. the weather was beautiful. we took a bunch of pics, but this one is pretty funny. everyone was freaking out that I touched that phone because it might have the swine flu.

that is not our official christmas card picture.

we went out to dinner at - guess where ........ cheddar's! and then stopped & brought some braum's ice cream/fro-yo home for dessert.

do people still say "fro-yo?"

to start working off some of those thanksgiving calories, my mom and I played mario & sonic go to the summer olympics on wii.

see, I told you my parents were fun!

I'll close with this picture taken on sunday after church.

yes, paisley is trying to jump out of my arms and into the tree... ugh

since this post was a mile & a half long, I will have to have a part 2 of my parent's visit - the bedlam experience.

Friday, December 04, 2009

(I have much to show & tell from my parents visit over thanksgiving, but I wanted to join the tour over at kelly's korner, so I am skipping ahead to show you our tree.)

We upgraded this year from the 6 foot pre-lit tree that comes in 3 simple sections to an 8 foot unlit tree that comes in 898027 sections. Fortunately my parents gave us this tree and since they are experienced in putting it together, we brought it down from the attic and assembled it while they were here last week. But don't worry, it was not up before thanksgiving. I think that should be illegal. (if I thought creating more laws were the best way to fix society... but I don't.) The tree was assembled and lights were hung mostly by my dad, and then tuesday night bobby and I added the personal touches of ribbon garland, ornaments and the star topper.

Here it is!

I wish I had a picture of it at night because it's much prettier then.

These are a few of my favorite ornaments...

This is one of a set of three given to me by my aunt as a memory of my trip to south africa a few years ago. this elephant looks a little different than the ones we saw in the bush, but it's much more festive! the other two in the set are a rhino and hippo that are equally festive.

The santa in the background of the above photo was given to us by our korean neighbors in st louis. it is santa holding an owl over his head. we never did quite understand the significance of that... is it a korean tradition? does anyone know??

this is a good picture because it encapsulates many of my favorite ornaments.

well, actually, these aren't my favorite ornaments per se, but they are symbols of places we've been... from left to right: Grove City College (my alma mater). the little minnesota vikings ornament was given to me many years ago by my former pastor's family. they are huge vikings fans (most of them) and while I never really was, it is appropriate to hang now because former OU player and superstar Adrian Peterson plays for them now, so everyone in norman is a vikings fan all of a sudden. the flying WV from west virginia university. one of bobby's guitar ornaments. and then the OU ornament in the upper right of the picture. we were worried that we didn't already have one and didn't know where we would be able to buy one here!! haha.

And then of course, I have a Pittsburgh Steelers ornament!

I have many other very special ornaments, these were just a few. Our baby's first christmas balls from 1977 are dear to me (especially since we were both born that year), our first christmas together ornaments from 2003, and now our first home ornaments. we have a bunch of bunny ornaments, wendell august forge ornaments, star wars, batman, & simpsons ornaments (those are bobby's!), and many more.

here's another shot of the entire tree

I know I cut off the top of the tree in that picture, but I wanted to get the cats. Oh, that reminds me... did you know that cats like to climb trees? even christmas trees???

this is after I pulled her (paisley) out... she's looking over at it and wanting to jump back in. bad girl!

Who am I?

Born & raised in western Pennsylvania, I now live in central Oklahoma. I am a daughter of the King, wife to Bobby, church planter wife at City Pres (PCA), real estate agent, and zookeeper of our three pets (Paisley, Shadow, and Little Girl.) What I am not, is a mother yet, and no, that is not by choice, unfortunately.